Nanjing Zendai Himalayas Center | MAD Architects

The Nanjing Zendai Himalayas Center is a city-scale urban project, with an overall building area of approximately 560,000 sqm. Working at this scale, MAD strives to capture a fully realized “Shanshui City”— a concept at the center of MAD’s designs that adapts the traditional Chinese Shanshui ethos of spiritual harmony between nature and humanity to the modern urban environment.

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Built over 2600 years ago, Nanjing is an iconic city with equally rich traditional heritage and high modernization. With these two motifs in mind, MAD strives to achieve a balance of the city’s historic past and its high-tech future. The design of the Zendai Himalayas Center maintains and develops the philosophy of cooperation between humanity and nature, albeit in a modern setting.
The carefully planned project seeks to restore harmony between humans and the environment by creating integrated, contemplative spaces that still meet the material needs of modern life.

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The site is composed of six lots, two of which are linked by a vertical city plaza. Curving, ascending corridors and paths weave through the undulating commercial complexes, bringing people from the busy ground level to the vertical park for opportunities to wander among the buildings and gardens.

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At the center of the site is a village-like community of low buildings, connected by footbridges and nestled into the landscape. This scene of footbridges, artificial hills and flowing water together creates a poetic moment at the heart of the project. The simplicity of the design concept is further captured through the use of clean construction materials, such as concrete.

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On the edge of the site, the mountain-like towers are characterized by vertical sun shading and pervious glass screens that “flow” like waterfalls. These features provide interior spaces with energizing light and the wind to form a subtle, calming ambiance. The project mimics the site’s surrounding mountains and meandering rivers that are essential parts of Chinese aesthetic philosophy. Towers along the edge of the site act as a mountainous backdrop, while water features such as ponds, waterfalls, brooks, and pools connect buildings and landscapes to integrate all of the Center’s elements. This integration goes beyond form, with the water features functioning as reservoirs to collect and recycle rainwater for irrigation